


Surprise, Surprise

by agentx13



Category: Captain America (Comics), Marvel (Comics)
Genre: F/M, Godmother Natasha, Overprotective Tony, Surprise pregnancy, cryptic pregnancy, not entirely realistic but screw it, sharon carter month
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:13:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28092222
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agentx13/pseuds/agentx13
Summary: Sharon doesn't know what's happening with her, but something's definitely up. And no, she doesn't think it's a pregnancy, like the doctor keeps saying. These aren't labor pains. They're- they're- oh, crap.
Relationships: Sharon Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 25
Collections: Sharon Carter Month





	Surprise, Surprise

**Author's Note:**

> Irene had the idea that Steve's serum might increase the odds of Sharon having a cryptic pregnancy, and when people prompt something I always get to it... eventually.

Sharon doesn’t like surprises. She likes plans. Sure, life might throw a curveball her way from time to time, but the more she works at the SHIELD, the more she works with the Avengers, the more plans she has for whatever she may come across. They can be tailored to different situations. She can fix things up in a second.

She likes knowing she’s got things handled. Surprises don’t help her feel like she’s got things handled.

She’s on a mission when she gets a hell of a surprise. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say she just peed herself, but that can’t be it. It isn’t blood, but it also isn’t urine.

She isn’t sure if it’s worth going to the hospital. It isn’t like it’s happened before. And with a nor’easter bearing down on them, predicted to bring several feet of snow and power outages, it isn’t like her case of a weak bladder (ugh, embarrassing) is worth taking time away from patients with more important problems. It’s probably just some weird, medical thing that no one talks about but everyone somehow knows about nonetheless. She’s fine. She’ll handle it.

She wraps up her mission and heads home. Her and Steve’s place is more than stocked for a nor’easter. Hell, it’s stocked for an apocalypse. She goes straight there, showers, changes into some clean, warm pajamas, and grabs some food from the fridge as she calls him.

As soon as he picks up, she says, “You’re _sure_ you don’t want me there?”

“I’m sure.” She can hear the wind in his comm. “You’ve been going nonstop almost three days, and you said so yourself that you’ve been feeling a little rundown lately.”

She scoffs. “A blizzard doesn’t care if I’m a little rundown.”

“And it can cut people down at their best,” he argues with ease.

“I can take a nap.” Like a freaking baby who just wet herself not too long ago. Not that she’s going to mention that.

“You should,” he agrees.

“And then come help,” she finishes.

“Give me a call after the nap. Good night, Sharon.” He hangs up, and she makes a face at the phone.

“You haven’t won this argument, Rogers.”

But she still ends up taking a nap. It has nothing to do with him. Everything to do with how she _has_ been feeling rundown and then working nonstop. It’s been going on for weeks, and she wonders briefly if she ought to go to the hospital after all. But what is she going to tell them? “Doc. I’m unusually tired lately and wet myself. Please give me tylenol?” Ugh. No. Better to sleep and fix this later.

* * *

She wakes to her stomach cramping. She rushes to the toilet, thinking it’s something she ate (peanut butter and pickles had sounded like a good idea at the time, but in retrospect, she can’t imagine why).

Nothing happens.

What, she thinks as she washes her face, is going on with her?

She makes herself a hot chocolate, a faint crease between her brows. Something weird is going on. It isn’t worth going to the hospital, but if she has another cramp like that while helping with the nor’easter… It would be irresponsible.

Okay. So Steve’s won that argument. Fine.

She goes to watch the news. The storm is still working its way to New York. The Avengers – multiple teams, given how many live in the city – will likely be helping with last-minute preparations for shelters and emergency services. She knows Steve has plans in place for what they’ll do during the storm itself, including scouring the streets to help people get home.

She drifts off again and once again wakes to another godawful cramp. She hasn’t had cramps like this since she was a teenager.

And then she remembers. She has an IUD. What if it’s become dislodged?

A quick search on her phone to check for symptoms and the dangers of leaving a dislodged IUD untreated, and she’s dressing for the storm. She doesn’t meet all of the symptoms. Maybe extra discharge? Which was better than thinking her bladder was weak. But definitely the cramping. _Definitely_ the cramping.

The transportation system is still working normally and won’t be suspended until the storm is closer, so Sharon makes it to the hospital easily enough. She tells the nurse at the desk her symptoms.

“You think you’re pregnant?” the nurse asks.

Sharon gives her an impatient glance. “Do I look pregnant?” Just because she’s been a little bloated lately. Which her work uniform does nothing to hide, unfortunately, but now, buried under sweaters and jackets, no one should be able to tell, right?

“Not everybody looks pregnant,” the nurse reasons. “Fill this out. We’ll call when we’re ready for you.”

Sharon’s there long enough to fill out her forms and suffer another round of cramps that leaves her doubled-over and murderous. The storm hits, and the snow ought to be beautiful, but really, it’s just pissing her off. She should be out there, helping people.

They call her name at long last, and she heads back and tells them her symptoms again.

“Any chance you’re pregnant?” the doctor asks.

“None. I think my IUD is loose.”

“How often do you have sex?”

Sharon hesitates. “Often enough,” she admits. “But I haven’t been displaying symptoms.”

“Last period?”

She shrugs. “A couple months. But I don’t tend to get them. And they’re never very heavy.”

“Low body fat?”

She shrugs again. “I guess. I’m in a demanding line of work.” The doctor looks at her curiously. “SHIELD,” she explains. “Agent.” And sometimes director of sub-director, but she doesn’t want to risk news getting out that the former director of SHIELD went to the emergency room during a blizzard because of an IUD. It wouldn’t make dealing with politicians any easier.

The doctor nods. “We’re going to take a pregnancy test, just in case, and after that, we’ll check the IUD,” he tells her. “We’ll admit you – not like you can go anywhere right now anyway.”

“The cramps are brutal,” Sharon admits. “So I’m not sure I’d leave anyway.” She means for it to sound teasing, but it’s somewhat ruined by another cramp that elicits a groan as she bends over and gasps for breath.

“That’s what the cramps are like?” the doctor asks, seemingly unconcerned. It isn’t right, Sharon thinks, that she gets to punch the Skull as much as she wants, but she can’t do the same to this apathetic bastard who wants to run tests instead of taking care of the problem.

“Yeah,” she croaks out.

The doctor nods and makes a note. “We’ll need blood and urine.”

* * *

Another two hours have passed before the doctor comes into her small room and says, “Well, Ms. Carter. Turns out you _are_ pregnant.”

She lowers the volume on the television, sure she’s misheard. “Did you say ‘pregnant?’ Because I’m not pregnant.”

The doctor stares at her. “Yes, you are. You described your water bursting and you’ve been having labor pains.”

Sharon blinks, dumbfounded. “The fuck I have been.”

The doctor tries not to look overwhelmed and tired and fails. “Have you ever heard of a cryptic pregnancy?”

“I’ve heard of cryptography.”

The doctor ignores that. “A cryptic pregnancy is when you don’t know you’re pregnant. It can happen when you’re on birth control or have an IUD. Roughly 1 in 500 pregnancies are a cryptic pregnancy. They can happen in women with low body fat. It’s normal for women with such pregnancies not to experience as many pregnancy symptoms, and not to the extent other women do. You might have bouts of nausea, but not consistently or strong enough to cause concern. Or you wouldn’t need as much rest but might still be more tired as usual, for instance.”

Shit.

She wants to deny it again. She can’t be pregnant, doctor, because she is _not_ pregnant.

But a cramp cuts her short. A labor pain, the doctor had said. Damn it. Not good. Not good. What the hell is she supposed to do about this?

She pants after the pain passes, ignoring the sweat cooling on her forehead. “Okay. Can we do more tests to find out if you might be wrong?”

The doctor gives her a look that in a lesser mortal would be considered withering. “We already know. You’re late enough along that it’s undeniable. What we need to do now is do an ultrasound to find out where, exactly, the baby is, and then do a C-section.”

“ _What?_ ” Sharon isn’t particularly well-educated on C-sections. Or birth in general, really, but she knows that C-sections are where they cut you open and you need longer to recover because your abdominal muscles have just been spliced apart. “Pass.”

“Otherwise,” the doctor says, “it could take months for the baby to come.”

On second thought.

“I need to make some calls,” Sharon says.

The doctor nods. “I’ll get everything else prepped.”

* * *

The first call is to Steve.

“Enjoy your nap?”

“I’m at the hospital.”

“What?”

“They think I’m in labor.”

“ _What?_ ”

“With a baby.”

“My baby?” his voice is weak.

“NO, STEVE. THE GODDAMN FUCKING SKULL’S-” She spots a nurse looking at her in alarm from the hallway. “-baby.” Crap. She takes a deep breath. “If you can get off Avengers duty, I may need you. They’re threatening to do a C-section. Just waiting for an ultrasound to find out where the freaking baby is.” She wants to yell that the baby, clearly, is in her, according to _them._ And maybe she wants to cry a little. But she can’t. Because she has to deal with this.

“I’m on my way,” Steve promises.

She tells him which hospital and hangs up. She can’t be pregnant. She can’t be.

Her second call is to Natasha.

“Now isn’t a good time,” Natasha says, and it sounds like she just bashed someone’s head against a wall.

“I’m pregnant.”

Another sound of bone against concrete, and everything’s quiet except the wind and snow.

Natasha’s voice is a whisper. “It’s happening.”

“I mean, I’m _not_ pregnant.”

“Oh,” Natasha says, her disappointment evident.

“I _can’t_ be pregnant,” Sharon elaborates.

“Uh-huh,” Natasha says, hope returning.

“The doctor _says_ I’m pregnant.”

“Uh-huh,” Natasha says, now fully smug.

“Fuck you. I need a medical advocate.”

“And you called me instead of Steve.”

“I called you to be my advocate. I already called Steve. Because-” Because she was scared and wanted him here. “Because they’re going to do surgery if I’m pregnant.”

“I’m gonna be a godmother,” Natasha says. Sharon thinks Natasha is talking to herself but doesn’t want to ask.

“Just get here,” Sharon snaps.

Another cramp. Labor pain? HELLISH PAIN FROM HELL GODDAMN. And she’s taken in for an ultrasound. Steve is shown in by a somewhat flabbergasted nurse just in time for the doctor to say, “Looks like twins.”

Sharon wants to cry. What is she supposed to do with twins? She and Steve have talked about children only in an abstract sense. They haven’t prepared at all. She hasn’t done any prenatal stuff. She’s supposed to meet with the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations Tuesday. How can do that with twins? If she’s away from babies so early, they’ll call her a bad mother.

They’re not wrong about that. She hadn’t even known she was _pregnant._ With freaking _twins._

Steve takes her hand. He knows she’s scared. She notices he’s scared, too, though he won’t let on.

“You’re in luck,” the doctor says.

“Is that so,” Sharon drawls.

“There’s an OR open. We can do the surgery now if you want.”

Sharon concentrates on breathing as she thinks. Steve watches her, and she can’t even imagine yet what he’s thinking. These damn cramps – fine, _labor pains_ \- have made her sweaty, some of her hair sticking to her temple, and she can feel another coming on.

She can’t go through weeks of this. And, logically, the sooner this is over, the sooner she can get back to work.

She nods. “Do it.”

“It won’t be right now,” the doctor says.

Sharon’s never wanted to murder someone so much in her entire life.

“We’ll get everything prepped,” the doctor says as if she shouldn’t kill him so he can get done. Bullshit. She knows he’ll likely have someone else do it anyway.

She’s wheeled back to her room. She has another labor pain on the way – and “pain,” by the way, isn’t enough to describe the hell it truly is – and Steve holds her hand and says soothing things as she gasps for breath.

When they’re alone in her room again, she looks at him hopelessly. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve got nothing to apologize for.”

“You’re right. Your dick did this to me.”

Steve covers up his grin by turning away to pull a chair closer. “We’ll make do. We always do. We’ve got money enough.”

“We don’t have anything for a baby,” Sharon points out. “I’ll have to take time off work. You might have to take time off from the Avengers.”

He shrugs. “I’ve done it before.”

She wants to cry and can’t keep it in anymore. He hurries to hold her, the angle making it awkward. “My water broke and I thought I wet myself,” she admits. “This is so much worse.”

“Is it really?” he says, sounding amused.

“You know even less about pregnancy and C-sections than I do,” she sniffles.

“I’ll google,” he promises.

“You really shouldn’t.”

The door opens, and Natasha sweeps in with bags nearly overflowing with various items. “The godmother is here,” Natasha announces.

“Aren’t you assuming?” Steve asks.

“I’m right, though,” Natasha says smugly.

“She’s right,” Sharon says, sounding more harried and desolate than smug.

Natasha pats Sharon on the head, then wipes her hand off on Sharon’s bedsheets. “Steve. I need the keys to your place. Tony wants to blow a hole through the lock, but I convinced him that a security breach would be bad for the baby.”

“Two babies,” Sharon says.

Natasha whistles and looks at her bags with concern.

“You bought enough,” Steve says quickly.

“Maybe,” Sharon continues. Her hand goes to her stomach. It’s a foreign gesture for her. If she’d found out she was pregnant earlier, she could have practiced sooner, and it would be old hat by now. “Who knows. Maybe I’ve got a bunch of rabbits in there. At this point, why the fuck not, you know?”

“Why,” Steve asks, handing over his keys, “do you need my keys?”

“Because you don’t have any baby stuff. I know these things.” She hands over the bags. “Here are some things to get you started. Blankets, non-choke-hazard stuffed animals, changes of clothes for Sharon, some baby clothes, diapers, and more.” She looks at the keys for a second. “I’m going to get started on your place. You guys don’t have anything embarrassing lying around we should know about, do you?”

Sharon and Steve look at each other.

“I left some dishes in the sink,” Sharon admits.

Natasha shakes her head. “You two are hideously vanilla.”

Just for that, Sharon waits until Natasha is just about to leave the room before saying quietly to Steve, “You cleaned up the whips, right?”

Steve sighs.

* * *

She’s wheeled away, clutching Steve’s hand until she can’t anymore, and when she wakes up, she’s in a different, larger, brighter, cleaner-looking room. Steve is asleep in a chair nearby. Sharon feels like she’s floating, and also like she’s half-dead. The wonders of modern medicine.

Steve wakes to the sounds of her shifting under her sheets because she feels itchy, and he hastens to her side.

“A girl and a boy,” he says. “Premature. They’ll be in NICU for a while. Tony’s been calling about our house. I haven’t been by, but apparently it’s going to look very different. Bruce stopped him from putting in a life-size rubber duck, but we might have to move.”

“Mm-hmm,” Sharon says. It comes out more like a cough.

Steve looks at her in concern. “How are you feeling?”

She nods and falls back asleep.

* * *

She’s in the hospital for days. She loses track of the exact number, too distracted by the kangaroo care and her children, her _babies_ being so small in her and Steve’s hands, and by the pain and healing of her C-section. Some of her work at SHIELD is reassigned, as is Steve’s with the Avengers, but Sharon, unused to the down time, still manages to make phone calls to “check in” and get into arguments with everyone from fellow agents to politicians.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” Natasha asks.

Sharon smiles. “No comment.”

Still, Natasha takes her role as a godmother very seriously, and Sharon finds that her phone has been replaced by one with parental controls that don’t allow her to call government agencies.

* * *

Returning home is an experience. Tony sends a car with room for Sharon, Steve, two baby carriers, and all the stuff that’s been bought for them. She falls asleep in the back while Steve admonishes Tony for his driving and Tony snaps back that the car is one of the safest places to be on the planet.

She wakes when the car stops outside her and Steve’s place, but even though she can carry a baby, neither man lets her. They each take a carrier and lead her up the stairs, Steve watching her closely just in case, and as soon as they reach the door at the top, Sharon realizes that everyone she knows and then some are in their home.

“I,” Natasha tells her in an undertone as she steps forward, “am an amazing godmother. I hope you don’t want a shower before everyone sees you.”

“I hate you,” Sharon says without malice.

Natasha shrugs. “The best time to throw you a surprise party is when you aren’t expecting it.”

Sharon looks at her.

“I couldn’t decorate with you in the next room,” Natasha argues. “I mean, I could, but this is easier.”

Sharon sighs but doesn’t complain.

* * *

Her fear from before now seems silly. What her doctor hadn’t mentioned was that, weirdly, cryptic pregnancies tended to happen to women with strong support networks, and Sharon has to admit that she and Steve have a very strong support network. She can work remotely to an extent until she can go on in-person missions again, and if Steve isn’t with the kids, then an Avenger of over-qualified SHIELD agent (or several) are with the kids instead. Natasha vets each and every caretaker who comes within a hundred-foot radius of the two, and Tony is nearly as paranoid.

All in all, the whole affair had been one surprise after another.

But, Sharon thinks, there had been enough good surprises here that she almost reconsiders her stance on surprises altogether.


End file.
